


I See You

by Grushenka



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Domestic Bliss, F/M, Fluff, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 02:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16379465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grushenka/pseuds/Grushenka
Summary: Fluffy one-shot of a post-Irenicus break in Suldanessellar. Post BG2, pre-ToB.





	I See You

Nessa stood on the balcony, her eyes squinted in the bright light of the early autumn sunset. Golden and auburn rays spilled over her, she bathed in their warmth and took in a deep breath of sweet, fresh air. A soft breeze blew across her skin and it prickled in response. She glanced down at her pale hands, her fingers wrapped around the railing, her bare feet pressed against wood beneath her feet as she raised herself up on her toes and leaned out over the green, leafy expanse below. Suldanessellar, for all of the faults of its inhabitants, was breathtaking to behold.

The sound of the leaves rustling, the freedom she felt as her hair whipped around her like wings, the distant sounds of laughter, they brought a smile to her lips. Irenicus didn’t break this place, just as he hadn’t broken her. The destruction he had wrought on the city would fade, even the scars would remain only for a time before they were buried deep in the collective memory of his people. Suldanessellar would heal. _She_ would heal.

The sun dipped further below the horizon and a chill crept into the twilight air. Nessa lingered for a few moments longer before turning back to her room. Ellesime had given them a place of honor, Nessa and her companions were asked to remain for as long as they wished. The queen requested that Nessa specifically stay with her at the royal dwelling so that she could have access to their best healers. A generous offer, and not unwelcome, Nessa was relieved to have her soul returned to her but the first few days after Irenicus’ death were...difficult. The elven clerics helped her put the pieces of her shattered mind back together. 

The doors to the balcony were wide open, the soft, sheer fabric of the curtains on either side of them billowed in the breeze. The room was contained within an impossibly large tree, the bed seemed to grow out of the very heart of it. A mass of twisting, winding limbs and a trove of silken sheets and woolen blankets scattered across the mattress...every texture evoked the forest, each color blended with the leaves that shook outside the room’s small, round windows. It would have been even more beautiful if it weren’t tainted by memories of Irenicus’ breath on her cheek, the deathly chill of his skin against hers. 

_They will fade Nessa...all fades in time._

She slipped across the room with gentle footsteps, her feet padding across the intricately woven rugs that covered the floor. She couldn’t fight the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips, nor the warmth that spread from the center of her chest and wrapped her entire body in a blanket of an emotion she could only describe as joy. Blue-gray hair fell down between two tanned, sinewy shoulders, a bare foot tapped impatiently on the floor, fingertips drummed on the small wooden table. She could hear a light humming as she drew near him.

They were both alive. Together. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes and she didn’t fight them. She had prepared herself for the worst, he had grown so distant, he had sensed she was slipping away but refused to admit it to himself, or to her. 

She stopped and stood for a moment, her eyes scanning over him. Ellesime had insisted on them making good use of the royal baths, much to Nessa’s mortification, but Haer’Dalis had no such shame. Ellesime was so gracious, more so than any other elf had ever been, if she thought Nessa’s lack of familiarity with elven culture was strange, she never let it show. Young elven women and men helped them scrub off the scale of months of travel, they washed their hair and massaged delicately fragranced oils into their scalps. Haer’Dalis’ eyes frequently darted back to meet hers, there was an emotion in the blackness that she couldn’t quite read. His lips were curled up in a half-smile, the curious expression he gave her when he was lost in his thoughts. 

Haer’Dalis’ braids were combed out, the band around his head removed, they had bound his long locks in a simple ponytail that traced down his back. No feathers or trinkets, no jewelry except for a few simple studs in his ears. She breathed softly, hoping that he hadn’t heard her approach so she could steal a few more moments to admire him before he realized she was there. Long fingers scribbled furiously on the paper before him, then paused before scratching viciously back and forth across the page. He wouldn’t tell her what he was working on, and for once she had decided not to press him on it. Haer’Dalis was ever-enigmatic, he was a puzzle that would not allow itself to be solved. Normally it would bother her, but something about the peace of her surroundings quelled any of her usual fears. Here, she felt content to _be_. To be with him, to be with herself, to stand in soft silence and let peace fall about her like snow. 

“Something troubling you, my love?” His smooth voice rolled over her and send a shiver down her spine. 

“No, quite the contrary,” Nessa replied as she drew up behind him and brought her hand to rest on his shoulder. His skin burned with its usual heat and chased the chill of the twilight air. 

“You’re frigid,” he murmured, a pen tucked between his lips. One of his hands held his forehead as he leaned forward and rested on a single elbow. The other arm reached back to search for her and wrapped itself around her waist. 

“It’s almost dark.”

Haer’Dalis pulled the pen from his lips and threw it carelessly across the desk. He turned his head to look up at her and pulled her closer to him. “Then I have let time slip away from me. My apologies, my raven, have I made us late for the evening meal?”

Nessa leaned down and placed a kiss on the tip of his nose. “No apology needed, I’m not that hungry. Besides, I was enjoying myself.”

“Oh?” Haer’Dalis asked, his inky black eyes gazing up at her. He looked so different now, scrubbed and well-rested, his hair combed and his skin glowing. Gods, he was handsome. 

“There’s something about this place, it…” she paused and pressed a hand across her chest. “It comforts me.”

“Aye,” he agreed. Haer’Dalis reached up to grab her hand and wrapped it in his. “It is good to see.” 

Nessa smiled at him, enjoying the warmth of his hands, the intensity of his penetrating gaze as it ran over her slender frame. She tugged at his hand, beckoning him to stand. “Come on,” she said, her eyes shining bright in the waning light, “come with me.” 

She lead him by the hand to the balcony, grabbing a soft woolen blanket as they passed by the bed. The sun had sunk beneath the horizon and the moon would soon be rising in the night sky. She stopped at the railing of the balcony and pointed to the eastern horizon. Haer’Dalis stood behind her and pressed his bare chest against her back, she relaxed into him and leaned her head against his. 

“Will you watch the moonrise with me?” she asked, her voice small in the great expanse of trees. Their balcony stood near the top of them all, their view was unobstructed. 

“Of course.” Haer’Dalis’ voice reverberated in his chest, his breath hot against her cheek. 

They stood for a few moments together, silent, enjoying the sort of peace they had lost hope in ever finding. No matter how soon it would end, Nessa would cherish these days, experiencing daily life as she had always dreamed it could be. Mornings spent together, one not allowing the other to get out of bed, days of wandering through the forest city, nights lost in one another’s company. Falling asleep to the gentle flicker of candlelight and the frantic, erratic scribbling of Haer’Dalis’ pen. Waking up for only a moment as warm, strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her against him. Whispered words of affection that she actually believed. An endless life without him was nothing to her. When she was with him, like this, she could almost feel what it was like to be mortal, the whispers in her mind became nothing but a murmur. 

With Haer’Dalis she was home, wherever she was. 

“It is a wonder to behold, my raven, is it not?” Haer’Dalis said. “Ever waxing, ever waning, I had heard of its beauty in tales of your world but I must admit, mere words are not sufficient. It must be seen.” 

Nessa nodded and sighed contentedly as they basked in the cool glow of the rising moon. Suldanessellar became another city in the nights, a place more mysterious, more still. 

“I heard a poem from a traveling bard, once, a woman from this world, I cannot help but think of it as I stand here, beneath the beauty of the moon in all its fullness.”

“Will you tell it to me?” Nessa asked. She turned in Haer’Dalis’ embrace to face him, and found the same strange smile on his lips that she had seen so often, lately. 

“You will never understand the gladness that you bring to this humble man’s breast, my dear Nessa,” Haer’Dalis whispered as he reached forward and traced his thumb across her rosy cheek. It slipped down to her chin, and he cupped it in his hand. 

“The moon was but a chin of gold, a night or two ago,” he began, then stopped to brush his thumb across her lips. “And now she turns her perfect face upon the world. What a privilege to be but the remotest star, for certainly her way might pass beside your twinkling door.” He leaned forward to press a feather-light kiss against her forehead. “Her bonnet is the firmament, the universe her shoe, the stars the trinkets at her belt, her dimities of blue.” 

Nessa shook her head gently and grinned at him. “What I’ll never understand is how you can remember things you heard so long ago.” She reached up behind him and ran her hands through his silver-blue hair. Her slender fingers pulled at the ties holding it back and she watched as the long locks spilled across his shoulders. 

“Tsk, tsk,” he said in mock disapproval. “It took those young elves hours to make me look even remotely acceptable to their kind. I do not think they have encountered many planetouched.” 

Nessa laughed and nodded as she watched the shiny tresses fall between her fingers. “I had no idea this was what you were hiding under that mass of tangles and trinkets.” 

Haer’Dalis snorted and shook his head, as he always did when she would attempt to have her way with his hair. He reached up and grabbed her hands, bringing them to his mouth to press another kiss against her cool skin. 

A few moments of quiet passed between them, their eyes locked on each others as he slowly lowered his hands and let go of his grip on hers. 

“Can we stay like this forever?” Nessa whispered. Her clear green eyes traced over the scars on his face, the deep pink of his full lips, the lines that followed the crease of his eyelids. They continued onto his broad, square jaw, the thick, muscular neck that betrayed just how athletic he really was. 

“There is no forever for me, my love,” Haer’Dalis replied, his eyes burning into hers. “But if there were, know that I would gladly spend it with you.” 

“There’s no forever for me, either,” Nessa said, leaning forward to press herself against him. “Not without you.” 

Uncertainty flashed in Haer’Dalis’ eyes. “Nessa…you cannot…”

“Shh,” she said, raising a finger to place it against Haer’Dalis’ lips. “If you expect me to let you be as you are, to accept what you can give and ask for nothing more, then you _must_ do the same for me.” 

Haer’Dalis’ shook his head. “You have wisdom beyond your years, my raven.” He let out a soft chuckle. “I find myself unable to disagree.” 

Nessa smirked at him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head nuzzled into his shoulder and the loose fabric of her dress flowed about him in the evening breeze. “This is all I have ever wanted, Haer’Dalis, I never knew what I was looking for but…” She paused and pulled back to look at him. “Nothing compares.”

Haer’Dalis wanted her to be wrong, he had tried so hard to find some reason to leave, to bring on the inevitable. But standing here with her, in the entrancing light of Toril’s moon, he knew she was right. Nothing compared to her, to what they shared, to the ease of their existence together. The lines of night and day blurred, a week had passed as if it were a mere hour. He had read of great love, sung about it, played the part of an awestruck lover, but he had never experienced _this_ before. The tales were true, the old adages were apt. _True_ love was unexpected, shocking, terrifying, even. It possessed him and bent him to its will, he was incomplete without the person who filled the cracks within him that he didn’t even know were there. He craved the stillness, the silent comfort of her presence. Her absence, the loss of her soul, it was as if his own soul had been ripped from his body. 

“Nessa…” he sighed, his voice catching in his throat. “You would say these things about me? A faithless bard, a vagabond, a fiend? You cannot be blind…”

Her eyes narrowed and her pale pink lips turned down in a frown. “You see what you wish to see, Haer’Dalis, but I see clearly.” She placed her hands against his chest. “I see _you_.”

In the dim light of the moon and stars he gazed at her, his eyes soft. 

“And I, my love…,” he said, and leaned his forehead to rest against hers. 

“I see you.”

\------------------------------

*poem is from Emily Dickinson. I clipped out some bits to make it fit.


End file.
